I made a realization the other day. I have become one of the things I hate the most on the internet.

I’m a writer on the internet that provides write-ups without the ability to skip to the recipe. That is a major peeve of mine. Though the bigger annoyances with recipe sites that are guilty of not being able to skip is the multitude of ads that invade the screen making it damn near impossible to read anything. Thankfully we don’t have that issue here. Plus, you all like reading the entire post right?

Of course you do. The latter part of this week has been unbearably hot (thanks climate change!) and I was a bit lazy in drink testing and experimentation this week, especially as it got hotter. I remembered I have a bottle of Lillet sitting in my fridge. Add in a cucumber I got from my uncle’s garden that we needed to use and I got to thinking about ways to combine them. A cursory search came up with neat Lillet with a cucumber garnish, but I thought I could do better. I decided to muddle the cucumber to see if they could impart some of their flavor into the wine, and I added some frozen strawberries since I thought they would compliment the flavor profile, as well as act as ice cubes to keep it colder for longer. Here is what I settled on for a recipe:

Lillet Cooler

4 oz. Lillet Blanc

2 Slices of cucumber, plus 1 for garnish

3-5 Frozen strawberries

Add the cucumber slices to the bottom of a rocks glass. Muddle the slices and add the Lillet and the strawberries. Garnish with the third cucumber slice.

The nose on this isn’t much to write home about. The wine aroma from the Lillet is most prominent. The cucumber gets overpowered, but then again cucumber doesn’t really have a strong smell to begin with, so I’m not exactly surprised here.

The flavor, as to be expected, is nearly all the Lillet. It is a sweet, concentrated wine blend that works very well in this application. When chilled it is very refreshing. The muddling of the cucumber did add some nice depth to it as well. It was very subtle, but you could taste it and complimented the wine very well. The strawberries were a good addition as well. They didn’t add much flavor early on, but as they thawed they started to impart a little bit of their flavor. They were excellent to eat after the drink was finished, so if you can, add frozen strawberries.

I felt the drink was still missing something, so I topped up my glass and added a two count of tonic water. I liked that addition as the quinine in the tonic added a little more bitter flavor to the sweeter wine to help balance it out. Fun fact: The original Kina Lillet had quinine in it. They took it out when they discontinued Kina Lillet, and introduced Lillet Blanc in the 1980s. So in a way, the tonic was more of a true to form Lillet based drink that this is. Though, I think soda might be a better move in this application if you want some bubbles in your cocktail.

Overall, this was a great call on a day where the heat index was in the triple digits. It was easy, super cold, and refreshing. I wouldn’t do more than one of these before dinner, unless I had the aforementioned tonic or soda, as the particular flavor the Lillet can be a touch sweet if you have 8 ounces of the stuff.

Have a good weekend and try to stay cool!

(Banner image found here)